Efficiency, PFC and Voltage Regulation
Voltage Regulation
To test voltage regulation we load the power supply to five different load scenarios that give an equal spread of load across every single rail. So that means 20% on all rails, 40% on all rails and so on. We then calculate the average deviance of each rail from its expected voltage.
Voltage regulation was strong on the 3.3, 5 and minus 12 volt rails. On the 12 volt rail we saw the voltage start at 3.75% above what it should be, towards 100% load it tended closer towards 12 volts but the initial and end values are still too high in my opinion. The results are okay but could still be improved.
Power Efficiency
Power efficiency is measured by calculating actual supplied wattage divided by the wattage drawn at the wall/plug, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. We then compare that to the particular 80 Plus certification the company claims to see if it meets that. You can see the 80 Plus certifications below, we always test 230v power supplies.
Efficiency conforms to 80 Plus Gold without a hiccup – no complaints here.
Power Factor Correction
Power Factor Correction is the ratio of the real power flowing to the load, to the apparent power in the circuit. The aim of PFC is to make the load circuitry that is power factor corrected appear purely resistive (apparent power equal to real power). In this case, the voltage and current are in phase and the reactive power consumption is zero. The closer the number to one the better as this allows the most efficient delivery of electrical power (Source – Wikipedia).
PFC is strong enough for a unit of this calibre: I’ve seen better but I’ve also seen a lot worse. At the price point it does well.
There’s no reason to state “Fan speed lower is better” on the chart because that is only a subjective opinion while factually speaking, higher is better for the PSU itself to reduce temperature except in this particular case that low quality Yate Loon fan will probably wear out its sleeve bearing before the life of the PSU is otherwise exhausted.
Hello. I am looking into buying a new PSU for my computer. I will upgrade to the AMD R7-370, my CPU is AMD FX4300. I want to buy the Thermaltake Tt Toughpower DPS G 550W ATX23 (here is the link http://hardware.nl/thermaltake/ps-tpg-0550dpcgeu-g.html ), but it seems to be different from the one you are reviewing. Is this a really different line? The one to which I linked has a 140mm ventilator, so it should be quieter. But the one I see in the image has a 120mm.
Yeah, it seems so. Strange Google gives this link when I am looking for a different Thermaltake.